As many a gamer already knows Sony’s PS3 Network went down yesterday. goD help us 70 million (odd) folk with nothing better to do on a Friday night!

Sony issued a statement that they were working on it and that certain outside party’s may have been involved which got me a bit worried. Surely even Killzone players have more sense than to play outside in the rain? Then again, it is school holidays over here and who nose what shenanigans the 12 year old, nigga wannabe, “sup dog” dudes are up to when all the Facebook brews come crashin’ over for a bro. Surely a bottle of misguided, regurgitated, Passion Pop couldn’t short circuit an entire international network!

Then I see the “outside party” claim was retracted on the playstation blog amid commenters pointing fingers at the Anon mob, who of course, have denied all responsibility and assured users they are waiting for Sony to get it’s playstation network back up and running before re-commencing their Take Sony Down campaign with the aim of not inconveniencing PS3 users.

Fair enough I say. I have my own conspiracy theories that make more sense.

It’s the fuckin’ Aliens I tell ya! The bastards dropped by for a quick game of online Black Ops, got the shits with hearing idiots playing hip hop over their mic’s, jumped into Zombies and turned the tide. Now we’re the zombies and they have the network and the ray guns. We’re all DOOMed!

Or so much for Good Friday. The playstation network has been crucified. An Easter egg says it won’t be resurrected until Monday!

Either way. Far-Kew Sony and the celestial being you think carries you. Get your shit together and back down to earth. With a bit of luck we won’t be reading your chronicles in two thousand years time.

I’m going back to playing online poker – or has the US banned that too?

“The legislation will allow police to seek a court order to make membership of a declared bikie gang illegal. Members who continue to associate with each other face jail for two to five years.” – ABC News, Thu Apr 2, 2009.

Remember when the anti-terrorism legislation was introduced with assurances that it was for our own good, would only apply to terrorists, safeguards were in place to protect innocent people and it would never apply to others? Then we had the Haneef debacle? Well now we have something akin called the CRIMES (CRIMINAL ORGANISATIONS CONTROL) BILL 2009!

In what can only be described as the biggest kneejerk (and other parts of the anatomy) reaction of the century, and despite serious concerns raised by the New South Wales Council of Civil Liberties and the Law Society of New South Wales, our politicians have shown their blatant contempt for civil rights and inaptitude to govern! The similar, and now lesser, South Australian laws are yet to be fully exercised and are the subject of a High Court action yet NSW is out to prove itself to be bigger, badder and foolproof… all in the blink of an eye! By their own admission, according to hansard, quite a few of those who supported the bill also had serious reservations about it, but still, there’s obviously no need to contemplate such serious and far reaching legislation because ours is better than the anti-terror and South Australian laws put together!

Which beggars the question – Who is going to enforce these draconian laws? Despite being granted a bigger and bigger stick to wield, via strengthening of new and existing laws over the last decade, the NSW Police Farce can’t keep up? If they fail to keep tabs on outlaw motorcycle clubs while they’re riding around in public with an equivalent of neon lights plastered all over there backs then how the fuck are the coppers going to see them when they turn those lights off? Are they really so naive as to think they’ll go away? Talk about sticking your head in the sand!

This whole exercise is about police and politicians failing to do their respective jobs and trying to save face to a media manipulated general public. There’s already a plethora of laws in place to deal with what the government and law enforcement seems unable to do. There’s absolutely no excuse to penalise the innocent along with the guilty based on purely speculative evidence presented to a supreme court judge.

Far-Kew Rees! Wake up and smell the waratahs! Already innocent bikers are being targeted in the form of road rage and discrimination. We all know it’s only a matter of time until multiple roadside checks are the daily norm and other minority groups are targeted. May you rest in peace, because we’ll still have a beer with whomever we fuckin’ choose!

In a move that may well have Microsoft founder Billy Gates rolling over in his philanthropists chair thinking, “Why the fuck didn’t I think of that”, EA Games, the makers of Spore, have sunk to a new all time low in consumer control with their latest draconian, Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

Not only is the much touted “family game”, Spore, severely limited to an all time total of three installs (goD help the windows wowsers) but it is also limited to a single user account on a single machine – at least on my Mac (and no, I’m not silly enough yet to own an iPhone)!

Thinking of challenging the kids to an evolutionary game of dynamic design and diplomacy throughout the ages? No bloody chance! Not unless you purchase another copy… and even then I doubt it can be played on the same machine!

I can’t help marvel at the gall of the person who pitched the DRM idea but the suits that marked off on it deserve the dry end of a dead dingo’s donger in through the out door! What were they thinking? It musta been one hell of a long lunch with much sucking of meatballs to swallow that idea!

The reviews on amazon.com seem to sum up the consumer backlash, at least from my perspective, very nicely. At the time of writing 2,433 reviews out of 2,816 have awarded Spore the minimum of one star! The “pay per star and we won’t talk about DRM” commercial magazine type reviews, on the other hand, tell a different story. So much for truth in advertising! If only I wasn’t such an impulse buyer!

Whilst trawling for a crack to fix the problem I read that quite a few sources on the interweb (so it must be true) are claiming that Spore is well on it’s way to eclipsing the pirate title of Most Downloaded Game Ever. It’s not hard to see why!

The fanboys, of course, are towing the corporate-thieves-in-suits line of “It’s all for your own good.” Sound familiar? “Software piracy costs us all!” Anybody would think they are out to make squillions, immorally, in directors fees under the gullible guise of doing it for the shareholders too!

“The guidelines do not use the term ‘binge drinking’. However, they do provide guidance on the risks both over a lifetime, and on a single drinking occasion.”

Semantics aside (don’t get me started on journalists) and although the report has still not been published I think we can asume that they are indeed considering to drop the safe drinking level to four standard drinks in a single session.

Then there’s their definition of a standard drink. Granted, my nips of Wild Turkey aren’t standard but why is a standard can of beer or standard glass of wine really one and a half standard drinks? Are they trying to confuse me with maths and get me to miscalculate how many drinks I can consume safely before I drive home?

Speaking of which. if so many drinks are bad for me how come I can go out for a three hour dinner, consuming four standard drinks and legally drive home under the, below standard, 0.05 blood alcohol limit? I can see the look on the coppers face as he gives me a Random Breath Test now…

“Have you been drinking tonight, Sir?”

“Bloody oath, mate, and binge drinking too!”

Of course, it’s all part of a master plot to further lower the drink driving level. It must be too high if binge drinkers are allowed to drive!